Sri Ramakrishna was a Hindu saint who lived in 19th century Bengal, India. He experienced spiritual ecstasies through worshipping the Divine Mother Kali. He practiced many religious disciplines and had visions of Hindu gods like Shiva as well as Jesus Christ, experiencing spiritual truths across religions. He attracted followers as his spiritual realizations became known, and longed for disciples to share his spiritual experiences and teachings with. He emphasized that all religions are valid paths to the same God.

1. Inspiring Lives
of
Sri Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi
and Swami Vivekananda
(Publication Department)
5 Dehi Entally Road
Kolkata 700 014

3. A Brief Life of
SRI RAMAKRISHNA
Early Days
Religion declines when people talk about
religion but do not practise it, or when people
use it for their own selfish motives.
Religion becomes polluted when hypocrisy
and dishonesty, lust and greed, jealousy and
hatred, ego and fanaticism are rampant in
people’s minds. Krishna declared in the
Bhagavad Gita: ‘When religion declines and
irreligion prevails, I incarnate myself in every
age to establish religion.’ As the same moon
rises in the sky again and again, so the same
God descends to the earth as a human being in
different places and in different times to fulfil
the need of the age and to point out the goal of
human life. This is not a myth: the lives of Rama,
Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Christ, Muhammad,
Chaitanya, and Ramakrishna attest to the
Gita’s statement.

4. 4 INSPIRING LIVES
Sri Ramakrishna was born on Wednesday, 18
February 1836, in Kamarpukur, a small village
112 km northwest of Kolkata. In the spring of
1835 his father, Khudiram Chattopadhyay, had
gone to visit the holy city of Gaya to perform a
rite for his ancestors in the Vishnu Temple. One
night in his sleep, Khudiram had a vision. A
luminous being gazed at him affectionately
and then said in a sweet voice: ‘Khudiram, your
great devotion has made me very happy. The
time has come for me to be born once again on
earth. I shall be born as your son.’
Khudiram was filled with joy until he
realized that he did not have the means to carry
out such a great responsibility. So he said: ‘No,
my Lord, I am not fit for this favour. I am too
poor to serve you properly.’ ‘Do not be afraid,
Khudiram,’ said the Lord. ‘Whatever you give
me to eat, I shall enjoy.’ Khudiram awoke,
convinced that the Lord of the universe was
going to be born into his household. He then
left Gaya and returned to Kamarpukur before
the end of April.
On Khudiram’s return, his wife, Chandra,
told him of an experience she had had in front
of the Yogi Shiva Temple next to their house.
Chandra said: ‘I saw that the holy image of

5. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 5
Lord Shiva inside the shrine was alive! It began
to send forth waves of the most beautiful light
— slowly at first, then quicker and quicker.
They filled the inside of the temple, then they
came pouring out — it was like one of those
huge flood waves in the river — right towards
me! I was going to tell Dhani [a neighbour
woman], but then the waves washed over me
and swallowed me up, and I felt that mar-
vellous light enter into my body. I fell down on
the ground, unconscious. When I came to
myself, I told Dhani what had happened, but
she did not believe me. She said that I’d had an
epileptic fit. That cannot be so, because since
then I have been full of joy and my health is
better than ever. Only — I feel that light is still
inside me, and I believe that I am with child.’
Khudiram then told Chandra about his
vision, and they rejoiced together. The pious
couple waited patiently for the divine child’s
birth the following spring. Because of Khudi-
ram’s experience at Gaya, Sri Ramakrishna was
named “Gadadhar,” meaning “Bearer-of-the-
Mace,” an epithet of Vishnu. Ramakrishna grew
up in Kamarpukur. He was sent to school where
he learned to read and write, but he soon lost
interest in this “bread-earning education” and

6. 6 INSPIRING LIVES
quit school altogether. However, he continued
to constantly learn by watching people in his
rural village. He was shrutidhar, which means
that whatever he heard once, he never forgot.
When he was six or seven years old, he had
his first experience of cosmic consciousness.
‘One morning,’ he recalled in later life, ‘I took
some parched rice in a small basket and was
eating it while walking along the narrow
ridges of the rice fields. In one part of the sky, a
beautiful black cloud appeared, heavy with
rain. I was watching it and eating the rice. Very
soon the cloud covered almost the entire sky.
And then a flock of cranes came flying by. They
were as white as milk against that black cloud.
It was so beautiful that I became absorbed in
the sight. Then I lost consciousness of every-
thing outward. I fell down and the rice was
scattered over the earth. Some people saw this
and came and carried me home.’
Khudiram died in 1843. Ramakrishna keenly
felt the loss of his father and became more
indrawn and meditative. He began to visit the
small village inn where pilgrims and especially
monks would stop on their way to Puri. While
serving these holy people he learned their
songs and prayers. Following the brahminical

7. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 7
tradition, Ramakrishna was invested with the
sacred thread when he was nine years old; this
allowed him to perform the ritualistic worship
for the family deities. He had some friends with
whom he would play, sing, and act out religious
dramas. Once during Shivaratri (a spring festival
of Lord Shiva) he lost outer consciousness while
enacting the role of Shiva. On another occasion,
while going to worship the Divine Mother in a
neighbouring village, he again went into
samadhi.
Dakshineswar Temple
and Vision of Kali
In 1850 Ramkumar, Khudiram’s eldest son,
opened a school in Kolkata. As a secondary
profession, he performed religious rituals in
private homes. It soon became difficult for him
to manage both responsibilities, so in 1852 he
brought Ramakrishna to assist him in per-
forming the rituals. On 31 May 1855 Ramkumar
accepted the responsibility of officiating at the
dedication ceremony of the Kali Temple of
Dakshineswar that had been founded by Rani
Rasmani, a wealthy woman of Kolkata.
Ramakrishna was present on that occasion.

8. 8 INSPIRING LIVES
Soon afterwards he moved to Dakshineswar
and in time became a priest in the temple.
Ramkumar died in 1856.
Ramakrishna now began his spiritual
journey in earnest. While worshipping the
Divine Mother, he questioned: ‘Are you true,
Mother, or is it all a fiction of the mind — mere
poetry without any reality? If you do exist, why
can’t I see you? Is religion, then, a fantasy, a
mere castle in the air?’ His yearning for God-
realization became more and more intense day
by day. He prayed and meditated almost
twenty-four hours a day. Then he had a
remarkable experience:
There was an unbearable pain in my heart
because I could not see the Mother. Just as a
man wrings a towel with all his strength to
get the water out of it, so I felt as if my heart
and mind were being wrung out. I began to
think I should never see Mother. I was dying
of despair. In my agony, I said to myself:
‘What’s the use of living this life?’ Suddenly
my eyes fell on the sword that hangs in the
temple. I decided to end my life with it, then
and there. Like a madman, I ran to it and
seized it. And then — I had a marvellous

9. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 9
vision of the Mother, and fell down uncon-
scious.… It was as if houses, doors, temple
and everything else vanished altogether; as
if there was nothing anywhere! And what I
saw was an infinite, shoreless sea of light; a
sea that was consciousness. However far and
in whatever direction I looked, I saw shining
waves, one after another, coming towards
me. They were raging and storming upon me
with great speed. Very soon they were upon
me; they made me sink down into unknown
depths. I panted and struggled and lost
consciousness.
After this vision it was not possible for
Ramakrishna to continue performing the
worship in the temple. He entrusted this
responsibility to his nephew Hriday, and spent
more than two years in a God-intoxicated state.
In 1859 he returned to Kamarpukur and lived
with his mother for a year and seven months.
During this time, Ramakrishna’s mother
arranged his marriage to Sarada Mukho-
padhyay, a very young girl from Jayrambati, a
few kilometres west of Kamarpukur. After the
marriage Ramakrishna returned alone to
Dakshineswar in 1860.

10. 10 INSPIRING LIVES
Once at Dakshineswar Ramakrishna was
caught up again in a spiritual tempest. He
forgot his home, wife, family, body, and
surroundings. He described his experiences
during that period:
No sooner had I passed through one spiritual
crisis than another took its place. It was like
being in the midst of a whirlwind — even
my sacred thread was blown away, and I
could seldom keep hold of my dhoti [cloth].
Sometimes I’d open my mouth, and it would
be as if my jaws reached from heaven to the
underworld. “Mother!” I’d cry desperately. I
felt I had to pull her in, as a fisherman pulls
in fish with his dragnet. A prostitute walking
the street would appear to me to be Sita
going to meet her victorious husband. An
English boy standing cross-legged against a
tree reminded me of the boy Krishna, and I
lost consciousness. Sometimes I would share
my food with a dog. My hair became matted.
Birds would perch on my head and peck at
the grains of rice that had lodged there
during the worship. Snakes would crawl over
my motionless body.

11. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 11
An ordinary man couldn’t have borne a
quarter of that tremendous fervour; it would
have burnt him up. I had no sleep at all for
six long years. My eyes lost the power of
winking. I stood in front of a mirror and tried
to close my eyelids with my finger — but
then, suddenly, I’d be filled with ecstasy. I
saw that my body didn’t matter — it was of
no importance, a mere trifle. Mother
appeared to me and comforted me and freed
me from my fear.
Other Spiritual Disciplines
In 1861 a nun called Bhairavi Brahmani came
to Dakshineswar to initiate Ramakrishna into
tantric disciplines. The Master practised sixty-
four methods of Tantra and attained perfection
through all of them. He then practised other
methods of the Vaishnava tradition, such as
vatsalya bhava (the affectionate attitude towards
God) and madhura bhava (the lover ’s attitude
towards the beloved). In 1864 Ramakrishna was
initiated into sannyasa by Tota Puri, a Vedanta
monk, and attained nirvikalpa samadhi, the
highest non-dualistic experience, in only three
days.

12. 12 INSPIRING LIVES
In 1866 Ramakrishna practised Islam under
the guidance of a Sufi named Govinda Roy. The
Master later mentioned to his disciples: ‘I
devoutly repeated the name of Allah, and I said
their prayers five times daily. I spent three days
in that mood, and I had the full realization of
the sadhana of their faith.’
In 1873 Ramakrishna met Shambhu Charan
Mallik, who read the Bible to him and spoke to
him of Jesus. One day Ramakrishna visited Jadu
Mallik’s garden house, which was adjacent to
the Dakshineswar temple. In his living room
there was a picture of the Madonna with the
child Jesus sitting on her lap. While
Ramakrishna was gazing at this picture, he saw
that the figures of the mother and child were
shining and rays of light were coming forth
from them and entering his heart.
For the next three days he was absorbed in the
thought of Jesus, and at the end of the third day,
while walking in the Panchavati, he had a vision
of a foreign-looking person with a beautiful face
and large eyes of uncommon brilliance. As he
pondered who this stranger could be, a voice from
within said: ‘This is Jesus Christ, the great yogi,
the loving Son of God, who was one with his
Father and who shed his heart’s blood and suffered

13. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 13
tortures for the salvation of mankind!’ Jesus then
embraced Ramakrishna and merged into his body.
After realizing God in different religions as
well as in different sects of Hinduism, Rama-
krishna proclaimed: ‘As many faiths, so many
paths.’ In this present age, Ramakrishna’s
teachings are the antidote to narrowness,
bigotry, fanaticism, and intolerance towards
different religions. He said: ‘It is not good to
feel that one’s own religion alone is true and
all others are false. God is one only, and not
two. Different people call on him by different
names: some as Allah, some as God, and others
as Krishna, Shiva, and Brahman. It is like the
water in a lake. The Hindus call it “jal,” the
Christians “water,” and the Muslims “pani.”’
The precious jewels of spirituality that he
had gathered through hard struggle during the
first three-quarters of his life were now ready
to be given to humanity. In 1875 Ramakrishna
met Keshab Chandra Sen, a popular Brahmo
leader who was considered a spiritual luminary.
Keshab and his followers began publishing the
life and teachings of Ramakrishna in their
journals, and as a result many people, especially
young Bengalis, came to know about the saint
of Dakshineswar.

14. 14 INSPIRING LIVES
Through direct experience Ramakrishna
realized that the form of the Divine Mother
was one with the formless Supreme Brahman,
like fire and its burning power, like milk and its
whiteness. The Divine Mother once said to the
Master: ‘You and I are one. Let your life in this
world be deep in devotion to me, and pass your
days for the good of mankind. The devotees
will come.’
Coming of the Disciples
As a loving father is anxious to leave his
accumulated wealth to his children, so a true
guru wants to give his spiritual treasures to his
disciples. After his first vision Ramakrishna had
to wait nearly twenty-five years for his
disciples and devotees. We can read in the
scriptures or in the lives of the mystics about
the aspirants’ longing for God but never about
God’s longing for the aspirants. Here is a
testimony in Ramakrishna’s own words:
There was no limit to the longing I felt at
that time. During the daytime I somehow
managed to control it. The secular talk of

15. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 15
the worldly-minded was galling to me, and
I would look wistfully to the day when my
own beloved companions would come. I
hoped to find solace in conversing with
them and relating to them my own realiza-
tions. Every little incident would remind me
of them, and thoughts of them wholly
engrossed me. I was already arranging in
my mind what I should say to one and give
to another, and so on. But when the day
would come to a close I would not be able
to curb my feelings. The thought that
another day had gone by, and they had not
come, oppressed me. When during the
evening service the temples rang with the
sound of bells and conch-shells, I would
climb to the roof of the kuthi [bungalow] in
the garden and, writhing in anguish of heart,
cry at the top of my voice: ‘Come, my
children! Oh, where are you? I cannot bear
to live without you.’ A mother never longed
so intensely for the sight of her child, nor a
friend for his companions, nor a lover for
his sweetheart, as I longed for them. Oh, it
was indescribable! Shortly after this period
of yearning the devotees began to come.

16. 16 INSPIRING LIVES
Ramakrishna’s disciples and devotees
arrived between 1879 and 1885, and he became
busy training them to carry out his mission. He
was an extraordinary teacher. He stirred his
disciples’ hearts more by his subtle influence
than by actions or words. Ramakrishna trained
each disciple according to his own natural
aptitude, as he knew everyone’s past, present,
and future. He never thrust his ideas upon
anyone. To those young men who were
destined to be monks he pointed out the steep
path of both external and internal renunciation.
When teaching the would-be monastic disciples
the path of renunciation and discrimination, he
would not allow householder devotees to be
near them.
When the flower blooms, bees come of their
own accord. People from all over flocked to
Ramakrishna and he would sometimes talk
about God as much as twenty hours a day. This
continued for years. His intense love for
humanity would not allow him to refuse help
to anyone. In the middle of 1885, this physical
strain resulted in throat cancer. When his
disciples tried to stop him from teaching, he
said: ‘I do not care. I will give up twenty
thousand such bodies to help one man.’

17. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 17
Ramakrishna was moved from Dakshineswar
to Kolkata and later to Cossipore for medical
treatment.
Towards the end of his life, Ramakrishna
distributed ochre cloths (the symbol of
monasticism) to some of his young disciples, thus
forming his own Order. He made Narendra (later,
Swami Vivekananda) their leader, who later came
to America to represent Hinduism, or Vedanta, at
the 1893 Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He
summarized Ramakrishna’s message to the
modern world in his lecture “My Master”:
Do not care for doctrines, do not care for
dogmas or sects or churches or temples. They
count for little compared with the essence of
existence in each man, which is spirituality;
and the more a man develops it, the more
power he has for good. Earn that first, acquire
that, and criticize no one; for all the doctrines
and creeds have some good in them. Show
by your lives that religion does not mean
words or names or sects, but that it means
spiritual realization.
Sri Ramakrishna passed away on 16 August
1886 at the Cossipore garden house; his body

18. 18 INSPIRING LIVES
was cremated on the bank of the Ganges. Sri
Ramakrishna revealed his divine nature many
times to his disciples. A couple of days before
the Master ’s passing, while he was suffering
from excruciating pain from cancer, Vivek-
ananda was seated near his bed. Seeing
Ramakrishna’s emaciated body Vivekananda
thought to himself:
‘Well, now if you can declare that you are
God, then only will I believe you are really God
Himself. Immediately Sri Ramakrishna looked
up towards Vivekananda and said: ‘He who
was Rama and he who was Krishna is now
Ramakrishna in this body.’
What Others have Said about Him
Sri Aurobindo
Of all these souls Sri Ramakrishna was the
last and greatest, for while others felt God in a
single or limited aspect, he felt Him in His
illimitable unity as the sum of an illimitable
variety. In him the spiritual experiences of the
millions of saints who had gone before were
renewed and united.

19. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 19
Mahatma Gandhi
The story of Ramakrishna Paramahansa’s life
is a story of religion in practice. His life enables
us to see God face to face. No one can read the
story of his life without being convinced that
God alone is real and all else is an illusion.
Romain Rolland
The man (Ramakrishna) was the con-
summation of two thousand years of the
spiritual life of three hundred million people.
Arnold J. Toynbee
Sri Ramakrishna’s message was unique in
being expressed in action.... Religion is not just a
matter for study, it is something that has to be
experienced and to be lived, and this is the field in
which Sri Ramakrishna manifested his
uniqueness.... His religious activity and experience
were, in fact, comprehensive to a degree that had
perhaps never before been attained by any other
religious genius, in India or elsewhere.
Sri Ramakrishna’s testimony to the harmony
of religions....can make it possible for the human
race to grow together into a single family —
and, in the Atomic Age, this is the only
alternative to destroying ourselves.

20. 20 INSPIRING LIVES
TEACHINGS
You see many stars at night in the sky but
find them not when the sun rises; can you say
that there are no stars in the heaven of day? So,
O man, because you behold not God in the days
of your ignorance, say not that there is no God.
•••
God is formless and God is with form too,
and He is that which transcends both form and
formlessness. He alone can say what else He is.
•••
God is one, but many are His aspects. As one
master of the house appears in various aspects,
being father to one, brother to another, and
husband to a third, so one God is described and
called in various ways according to the
particular aspects in which He appears to His
particular worshipper.
•••
He is born to no purpose who, having the
rare privilege of being born a man, is unable to
realize God in this life.
•••
A boat may stay in water, but water should
not stay in the boat. An aspirant may live in the
world but the world should not live in him.

21. SRI RAMAKRISHNA 21
•••
A truly religious man should think that other
religions also are paths leading to truth. We
should always maintain an attitude of respect
towards other religions.
•••
Remain always strong and steadfast in your
own faith, but eschew all bigotry and in-
tolerance.
•••
That knowledge which purifies the intellect
is the true knowledge, everything else is non-
knowledge.
•••

22. A Brief Life of
SRI SARADA DEVI
Early Days
Sarada Devi was born on 22 December 1853 in
the little village of Jayrambati in the district of
Bankura in West Bengal. Her parents,
Ramachandra Mukhopadhyaya and Shyama-
sundari, were orthodox Brahmins. They were
poor but generous and utterly simple. Many
years later, Sarada Devi speaking of her parents’
virtuous nature, remarked: ‘If they had not led
a life of spiritual discipline, how could divinity
have been born as their child?’
It is said that before Sarada’s birth, both
parents had had visions foretelling the advent
of a divine being. Once Ramachandra went on
a visit to Kolkata. There he had a dream in which
he saw a radiant little girl of golden complexion
was clasping his neck, ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
She replied: ‘Well, you see, I have come into
your family.’

23. SRI SARADA DEVI 23
On his return home he told Shyama about it.
She was surprised, for she too had had a vision.
She described it thus: ‘One day, as I was going
to the river, I sat down under a big tree there.
Suddenly, I saw a charming little girl coming
down from the tree. I was frightened at first,
but she was full of angelic beauty and clasped
my neck with her tender arms. I lost
consciousness, and people carried me home. I
feel she has entered my body.’
Marriage
At the age of five Sarada was married to Sri
Ramakrishna, then twenty-three years old.
Strange as this marriage may appear in our eyes,
such marriages were not uncommon in those
days. It was more in the nature of a betrothal.
Sri Ramakrishna had been passing through a
state of God-intoxication. As he was
completely indifferent to food, sleep, and other
physical requirements, and absorbed day and
night in meditation and prayer, people took
him for a madman. His relatives finally hit
upon the idea of finding him a wife so as to
bring his mind to the normal state. Sri

24. 24 INSPIRING LIVES
Ramakrishna agreed to be married. He even
pointed out where his bride would be found.
But immediately after the marriage, he left for
Dakshineswar to plunge again into the practice
of spiritual discipline.
It was after eight years, when Sri Ramakrishna
visited Kamarpukur again, that Sarada had her
first real contact with her husband. The Master
instructed her in both spiritual and secular
matters. He emphasized the need of such
spiritual disciplines as non-attachment, self-
control, meditation, and prayer. He also taught
her the duties of a householder: how to serve
guests, show respect to elders, discharge
worldly duties in an unselfish spirit, and even
how to trim a lamp, etc. In Sri Ramakrishna’s
company her happiness knew no bounds. ‘ t that
A
time,’ she said later, ‘I always felt as if a jar
brimful of bliss was set in my heart. It is
impossible to describe the fullness of that joy.’
After spending a year or so at Kamarpukur,
Sri Ramakrishna returned to Dakshineswar.
Four long years passed again in intense God-
consciousness. Reports reached the village that
Ramakrishna had turned mad at Dakshineswar.
Sarada was worried and felt that she should be
with her husband to serve him.

25. SRI SARADA DEVI 25
Soon an opportunity arrived. She made up
her mind to come to Dakshineswar and see the
situation with her own eyes. Her father agreed
to accompany her. During the trip she was
attacked with a high fever and thought she
would not be able to see her husband. But as
she lay ill she was assured in a vision by the
Divine Mother Kali that the purpose of her
journey would be fulfilled. After recovering
somewhat, she proceeded with her father.
Sarada reached Dakshineswar. Sri
Ramakrishna welcomed her affectionately and
made arrangements for her treatment. In no
time she discovered that her husband was as
tender and cordial as ever. Henceforth she
remained by his side as his wife and disciple —
but always a nun.
One day Sri Ramakrishna, finding Sarada
alone in his room, asked her, ‘Have you come
here to drag me down to the life of the world?’
‘Certainly not,’ she replied without a
moment’s hesitation. ‘Why should I entangle
you in the world? I am here to help you realize
your spiritual ideal.’
She, on her part, asked him as she was
stroking his feet: ‘How do you look upon?’ Pat
came the reply: ‘The Divine Mother who is

26. 26 INSPIRING LIVES
worshipped in the temple, and the mother who
gave birth to this body and is now living in the
Nahabat (Music Tower), is now stroking my
feet. Truly do I regard you as the Blissful Mother
of the Universe.’
Now Sarada was almost eighteen. Sri
Ramakrishna was convinced that the ordinary
relationship between husband and wife
sanctioned by society and religion did not apply
to them. Sarada was indeed a manifestation of
the Divine Mother, and he felt that the time was
ripe to fully awaken the divinity in her. On an
auspicious night he arranged in his room a special
worship of the Divine Mother. Sarada took the
place of the deity, and her husband offered her
formal worship. Sarada was completely lost in
herself. She was not aware of anything. After
the worship was over, Ramakrishna prostrated
himself before her, seated firmly like an image,
and prayed : ‘O Mother of the Universe, I salute
Thee again and again.’
Since that day Sarada felt that a divine power
had entered into her. The simple village girl had
become transformed into the Holy Mother,
Sarada Devi!
One day Sarada was returning from Jayrambati
to Dakshineswar with several companions. They

27. SRI SARADA DEVI 27
were passing through a long and lonely stretch
of land, which was infested with dacoits. She had
lagged behind her companions; it was dusk, and
suddenly she found herself quite alone. She was
terrified to see a dark, hefty man approaching. In
his hand he carried a long, stout stick. Sarada
realized that he must be a dacoit and stopped.
The man asked rudely who she was. In gentle
words she said, ‘Father, my companions have left
me behind. Perhaps I have lost my way. Your son-
in-law (referring to Sri Ramakrishna) lives at
Dakshineswar and I am on my way to him. Please
accompany me. He will certainly be grateful for
your help.’
Sarada Devi’s utter simplicity, straight
forwardness, and gentle words completely
won the hearts of the robber and his wife. They
took her home, fed her, and put her to bed. In
the morning they escorted her a long distance,
till she was safely on the road to Dakshineswar.
In later years this couple visited Sri
Ramakrishna many times with suitable gifts.
At one time she asked them why they showed
her such affection. They replied: ‘But you are
not an ordinary human being; we saw you as
Mother Kali. Perhaps you hide your real nature
from us because we are sinners.’

28. 28 INSPIRING LIVES
Sarada Devi’s life at Dakshineswar was of
unceasing activity and stillness of prayer. She
woke up before four o’clock in the morning and
spent an hour and a half in meditation and
worship. Though she lived a very austere life
there, she was quite happy serving Sri
Ramakrishna. One day a rich man offered him
ten thousand rupees to meet his daily needs.
The Master, who was the embodiment of
renunciation, refused the gift immediately. The
man then asked if he could leave the money
with Sarada Devi. Sri Ramakrishna told her of
the offer but was met with a stern refusal. ‘I
certainly cannot accept it,’ she said. ‘My
acceptance would be the same as yours.’
Hearing her words, the Master felt greatly
relieved.
Sri Ramakrishna was fully aware of Sarada
Devi’s divine nature and her future mission. He
gave her detailed instruction about how to
awaken the spirituality of her future disciples.
One day, a short time before his passing away,
Sri Ramakrishna said to her: ‘Won’t you do
anything. Must this (pointing to his own body)
do everything?’ ‘But,’ she protested, ‘I am a
mere woman. What can I do?’ ‘No, no,’ said Sri
Ramakrishna, ‘You will do many things.’

29. SRI SARADA DEVI 29
On another occasion he remarked to her, ‘Look
at the people of Kolkata. They are squirming like
worms in darkness. Please look after them. How
little this (referring to his body) has
accomplished! You have a much heavier task.’
In her later life she once said to a disciple, ‘The
Master regarded all creatures as manifestations
of the Divine Mother. He left me behind to
manifest the motherhood of God.’
After the Master’s Passing away
When Sri Ramakrishna passed away on 16
August 1886, Sarada Devi stood by his bedside
and wept like a bereaved child. ‘Mother! O
Kali!’ she cried, ‘What have I done that you have
gone away, leaving me alone and helpless?’
When she was about to take off her ornaments,
as is the custom of Hindu widows, Sri
Ramakrishna appeared before her, looking as
he did before he was stricken with cancer.
Pressing her hand, he said, ‘Am I dead that you
are acting like a widow? I have moved from
one room to another.’ She did not take off the
bracelets and wore them as long as she lived.
From now on it will be appropriate to refer
to Sarada Devi as Holy Mother, the name by

30. 30 INSPIRING LIVES
which she is now cherished by the devotees of
Sri Ramakrishna. A fortnight after the Master ’s
passing away, Holy Mother set out on a
pilgrimage in company with several disciples
of the Master in order to get relief from her
sorrow, and she visited Varanasi, Ayodhya,
Hardwar, Allahabad, etc. Several times she had
visions of the Master which considerably
assuaged her grief. She visited Bodh-Gaya, the
place of the Buddha’s enlightenment, where
she saw monks living in affluence in a
monastery. Remembering the hardship and
poverty of Sri Ramakrishna’s wandering
disciples, she prayed fervently to God for their
physical welfare.
Sri Ramakrishna said that when flowers
bloom, bees gather around them of their own
accord. As Holy Mother ’s inner life blossomed
forth, spiritual seekers felt the irresistible
attraction of its fragrance and came to her
unasked. They came from all directions—
whether she was in Kolkata or in her native
village, or was visiting different parts of India
in the course of her pilgrimages. She became
an unfailing source of inspiration to the
members of the Ramakrishna Order who
devoted their lives to meditation, prayer and

31. SRI SARADA DEVI 31
study, or to the service of humanity. She
showered her blessings equally upon
contemplatives and active monks, and
encouraged householder devotees to perform
their duties in a spirit of detachment, and to
practice regular meditation and prayer. She
became their sole refuge from the tribulations
of the world.
Once the Mother was waiting for a train at
the Bishnupur railway station during a journey
to Kolkata. Suddenly a porter walked up to her.
He was accustomed to worship Rama and Sita.
The man fell at the Holy Mother ’s feet exclaim-
ing: ‘O you are Mother Janaki (Sita). How long
have I been searching for you. Today is my good
fortune that I have found you.’ The Mother
recognized the genuine devotion of the porter
and initiated him with a ‘Mantra’ on the station
platform itself.
One of Holy Mother ’s nieces played a very
important part in her life and in the fulfilment
of her earthly mission. Her name was Radhu.
Once Mother made a significant remark:
‘Everyone says that I am terribly attached to
Radhu. But without this attachment I could not
have kept my body alive after the Master ’s
death. Thus it is the Master himself who has

32. 32 INSPIRING LIVES
made me cling to Radhu — just to preserve my
body. When my mind becomes indifferent to
her I shall leave this world.’
How this ordinary humanity concealed
Holy Mother ’s divinity has been well
expressed by Swami Premananda, one of the
Master ’s prominent disciples. In the course of
a letter, he wrote: ‘Our Mother, an empress
among queens, has become of her own accord
a beggar and does all the menial work with
her own hands. She is putting up with hard-
ship to teach householders how to perform
their duties.’
Holy Mother, like her husband, was Divinity
Incarnate. It was the same power which
became manifest through the human forms of
both Sri Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi. In the
former the outer manifestation was greater
than in the latter. It was this embodiment of
the Divine Mother of the Universe that Sri
Ramakrishna had worshipped in his room at
Dakshineswar.
The Mother left the world on 21 July 1920
and was cremated on the bank of the Ganga at
the Belur Math. Today on this very spot stands
a beautiful little temple.

33. SRI SARADA DEVI 33
What Others have Said about Her
Sri Ramakrishna
She is Sarada, Saraswati; she has come to
impart knowledge. She has descended by
covering up her beauty this time... She is full of
the rarest wisdom. Is she of the common run?
She is my Shakti.
Swami Vivekananda
None of you has understood Mother. Her
grace upon me is one hundred thousand times
greater than that of the Master…. About Mother
I am a little fanatic. I can do anything if she
gives the order. I shall give a sigh of relief when
you purchase a piece of land and instal this
living Durga there.
Swami Brahmananda
It is difficult to understand Mother. She
moves about, veiling her face, like an ordinary
woman, but in reality she is the Mother of the
Universe. Could we have recognized her if the
Master himself had not revealed to us who she
was?

34. 34 INSPIRING LIVES
Swami Shivananda
Is our Mother an ordinary mother? For the
good of the world the Mother of the Universe
embodied Herself to give liberation to souls.
TEACHINGS
I am the mother of the wicked as I am the
mother of the virtuous. Whenever you are in
distress, just say to yourself, ‘I have a mother.’
•••
Many are known to do great works under
the stress of some strong emotion. But one’s
true nature is known from the manner in which
one does one’s insignificant daily task.
•••
Suppose one of my children has smeared
himself with dirt. It is I, and no one else, who
shall have to wash him clean and take him in
my arms. To make mistake is man’s very nature;
but few of those who criticize know how to
correct them.
•••
Do not fear, my child. Always remember that
the Master is behind you. I am also with you.
As long as you remember me, your mother, why

35. SRI SARADA DEVI 35
should you be frightened? The Master said to
me, ‘In the end I shall certainly liberate those
who come to you.’
•••
If you want peace of mind do not look into
other ’s faults. Rather look into you own. Learn
to make the whole world your own. No one is
a stranger, my child. The whole world is your
own.
•••
The less you become attached to the world
the more you enjoy peace of mind.
•••
One never finds Him without love and
devotion.
•••
One who has a pure mind, considers
everyone pure.
•••

36. A Brief Life of
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
Early Days
Swami Vivekananda, or Narendranath Datta,
or simply Naren, as he was called in his pre-
monastic days, was born to Vishwanath Datta
and Bhuvaneswari Devi in Kolkata on Monday,
12 January 1863. The Datta family was rich,
respectable, and renowned for charity, learn-
ing, and a strong spirit of independence.
Narendranath’s grandfather, Durgacharan
Datta, was well-versed in Persian and Sanskrit
and was skilled in law. But after the birth of his
son Vishwanath, he renounced the world and
became a monk. He was then only twenty-five
years of age.
Vishwanath Datta was an attorney-at-law
in the Kolkata High Court. He was proficient
in English and Persian, and took great delight
in reciting to his family the poems of the Persian
poet Hafiz. He also enjoyed the study of the

37. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 37
Bible and of the Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit.
Though charitable to an extravagant degree
and sympathetic towards the poor, Vishwanath
was rationalistic and progressive in outlook in
matters religious and social, owing perhaps to
the influence of western culture. Bhuvaneswari
Devi was an accomplished lady with a regal
bearing. She was deeply religious. Before the
birth of Narendranath, though she had
daughters, she yearned for a son and asked one
of her relatives at Varanasi to make religious
offerings to Viresvara Shiva. It is said that she
dreamt later that Shiva promised to be born as
her son. Narendranath was born some time
afterwards.
In his early childhood, Narendranath was
rather restless and given to much fun and frolic.
But at the same time, he had a great attraction
for spiritual matters and would play at
worshipping or meditating on the images of
Rama-Sita, Shiva, etc. The stories of the Rama-
yana and the Mahabharata, which his mother told
him, left an indelible impression on his mind.
Traits such as courage, sympathy for the poor,
and attraction towards wandering monks
appeared spontaneously in him. Even in
childhood, Narendranath demanded con-

38. 38 INSPIRING LIVES
vincing arguments for every proposition. With
these qualities of head and heart, he grew into
a vigorous youth.
At the Feet of Sri Ramakrishna
As a youth, Narendranath’s leonine beauty
was matched by his courage. He had the build
of an athlete, a resonant voice, and a brilliant
intellect. He distinguished himself in athletics,
philosophy, and music, and among his col-
leagues was the undisputed leader. At college,
he studied and absorbed western thought, and
this implanted a spirit of critical inquiry in his
mind. His inborn tendency towards spirituality
and his respect for ancient religious traditions
and beliefs, on the one side, and his argumen-
tative nature, coupled with his sharp intellect,
on the other, were now at war with each other.
In this predicament, he tried to find comfort in
the Brahmo Samaj, the popular socio-religious
movement of the time. The Brahmo Samaj
believed in a formless God, deprecated the
worship of idols, and addressed itself to various
forms of social reform. Narendranath also met
prominent religious leaders, but could not get

39. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 39
a convincing answer from them to his
questions about the existence of God. This only
accentuated his spiritual restlessness.
At this critical juncture, he remembered the
words of his Professor, William Hastie, who
had mentioned that a saint lived at Dakshi-
neswar, just outside Kolkata, who experienced
the ecstasy described by Wordsworth in his
poem, The Excursion. His cousin, Ramachandra
Datta, also induced him to visit the saint. Thus
came about, in 1881, the historic meeting of
these two great souls, the prophet of modern
India and the carrier of his message. Narendra-
nath asked: ‘Sir, have you seen God?’ Sri
Ramakrishna answered his question in the
affirmative: ‘Yes, I have seen Him just as I see
you here, only more intensely.’ At last, here was
one who could assure him from his own
experience that God existed. His doubt was
dispelled. The disciple’ s training had begun.
While Sri Ramakrishna tested him in so many
ways, Narendranath, in turn, tested Sri
Ramakrishna in order to ascertain the truth of
his spiritual assertions. At one stage, after the
passing away of his father in 1884, Narendra-
nath’s family suffered many troubles and
privations. At the suggestion of his Master,

40. 40 INSPIRING LIVES
Narendranath tried to pray to Mother Kali at
Dakshineswar for the alleviation of the
family ’s distress. He found, however, that
although his need was for wealth, he could pray
only for knowledge and devotion.
Gradually, Narendranath surrendered him-
self to the Master. And Sri Ramakrishna, with
infinite patience, calmed the rebellious spirit
of his young disciple and led him forth from
doubt to certainty and from anguish to spirit-
ual bliss. But, more than Sri Ramakrishna’s
spiritual guidance and support, it was his love
which conquered young Narendranath, love
which the disciple reciprocated in full measure.
With Sri Ramakrishna’s illness and his
removal to Cossipore, on the outskirts of
Kolkata, for treatment, began Narendranath’s
final training under his guru. It was a time
remarkable for the intense spiritual fire which
burned within him and which expressed itself
through various intense practices. The Master
utilized the opportunity to bring his young
disciples under the leadership of Narendra. And
when Narendra asked that he might be blessed
with nirvikalpa samadhi, ordinarily regarded as
the highest spiritual experience, the Master
admonished him saying: ‘Shame on you! I

41. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 41
thought you would grow like a huge banyan,
sheltering thousands from the scorching misery
of the world. But now I see you seek your own
liberation.’ All the same, Narendra had the
much-coveted realization, after which the
Master said that the key to this would
thenceforth remain in his keeping and the door
would not be opened till Narendra had finished
the task for which he had taken birth. Three or
four days before his maha-samadhi, Sri
Ramakrishna transmitted to Narendranath his
own power and told him: ‘By the force of the
power transmitted by me, great things will be
done by you; only after that will you go to
whence you came.’
After the passing away of the Master in
August 1886, many of the young disciples
gathered together in an old dilapidated house
at Baranagore under the leadership of Naren-
dranath. Here, in the midst of a life of intense
austerity and spiritual practices, the foundation
of the Ramakrishna brotherhood was laid. It
was during these days that Narendranath,
along with many of his brother disciples, went
to Antpur; and there on Christmas Eve (1886),
sitting round a huge fire in the open, they took
the vow of sannyasa. The days at Baranagore

42. 42 INSPIRING LIVES
were full of great joy, study, and spiritual
practices. But the call of the wandering life of
the sannyasin was now felt by most of the
monks. And Narendranath, too, towards the
close of 1888, began to take temporary excur-
sions away from the Math.
The Wandering Monk
A remarkable change of outlook came over
Narendranath between the closing of 1888,
when he first left on his temporary excursions,
and 1890, when he parted finally from his
brethren and travelled alone as an unknown
mendicant. He began to assume various names
in order to conceal his identity that he might
be swallowed up in the immensity of India.
Now it was that the natural desire of an
Indian monk for a life of solitude gave way to
the prescience that he was to fulfil a great
destiny; that his was not the life of an ordinary
recluse struggling for personal salvation. Under
the influence of his burning desire to know
India better and the mute appeal rising all
around him from oppressed India, he went first
to Varanasi, the holiest city of the Hindus. After

43. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 43
Varanasi, he visited Lucknow, Agra, Vrindaban,
Hathras, and Rishikesh, and then returned to
Baranagore for a time. At Hathras, he met Sharat
Chandra Gupta who became his first disciple
(Swami Sadananda). He revealed to him the
mission entrusted to him by his Master, namely,
the spiritual regeneration of India and the
world. Sharat, who was on the staff of the
railway station at Hathras, resigned his post
and followed his guru to help him in his mission.
An important event in the Swami’s life at
this time occurred in 1890, when he met
Pavhari Baba of Ghazipur, for whose saint-
liness he had the greatest admiration through-
out his life. At this time, he was torn between
the desire, on the one hand, to become
absorbed in the eternal silence of the Absolute
and, on the other, the desire to fulfil his
Master ’s mission. He hoped that Pavhari Baba
would appease the remorse gnawing at his
heart, which was due to the fact that fervour
for the highest absorption in the Divine drew
him away from the work entrusted to him by
his Master. For twenty-one days Naren was
on the point of yielding to this temptation,
but the vision of Sri Ramakrishna always came
to draw him back.

44. 44 INSPIRING LIVES
In July 1890, the Swami took leave of Sri
Sarada Devi, the holy consort of Sri Rama-
krishna, who was the spiritual guide of the
young monks after the Master ’s passing away.
He also took leave of his brother monks, with
the firm resolve to cut himself free from all ties
and to go into the solitude of the Himalayas,
for he felt it essential to be alone. In the words
of Romain Rolland: ‘This was the great
departure. Like a diver, he plunged into the
Ocean of India and the Ocean of India covered
his tracks. Among its flotsam and jetsam, he
was nothing more than one nameless sannyasin
in saffron robe among a thousand others. But
the fire of genius burned in his eyes. He was a
prince despite all disguise.’
His wandering took him to various places of
pilgrimage and historical interest in Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra,
Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Hyderabad.
Everywhere the glory of ancient India vividly
came before his eyes, whether political, cultural,
or spiritual. In the midst of this great education,
the abject misery of the Indian masses stood
out before his mind. He moved from one
princely State to another, everywhere to explore
avenues of mitigating their lot. Thus he came

45. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 45
to meet many leading personalities and rulers
of the princely States. Among them, Maharaja
Ajit Singh of Khetri became his fast friend and
ardent disciple. At Alwar, he studied the
Mahabhashya of Patanjali. At Pune, he stayed
with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the great national
leader. At first, Tilak talked with the Swami
somewhat ironically, but later his depth of
learning and profundity of thought impressed
him, and he invited the Swami to stay with him.
From there, after a stay at Belgaum, he went to
Bangalore and Mysore. The Maharaja of
Mysore gave him the assurance of financial
support to enable him to go to the West to seek
help for India and to preach the eternal religion.
From Mysore, he visited Thiruvananthapuram
and Kanya Kumari.
Wherever he went, it was not the important
places and people that impressed him most. It
was the terrible poverty and misery of the
masses that caused his soul to burn in agony.
He had travelled through the whole of India,
often on foot, for nearly three years, coming to
know India at first hand. Now he had reached
the end of his journey, as it were. He prostrated
himself with great feeling before the image of
Mother Kumari at the Kanya Kumari temple.

46. 46 INSPIRING LIVES
Then he swam across the sea to a rock off the
south coast, and sitting there for the whole
night went into deep meditation. The vast
panorama of his experiences during his travels
passed before his mind’s eye. He meditated on
the past, the present, and the future of India,
the causes of her downfall, and the means of
her resurrection. He then took the momentous
decision to go to the West to seek help for the
poor of India and thus give shape to his life’s
mission.
With this decision, he journeyed to Rame-
swaram and Madurai. He then went on to
Chennai, where a group of young men, headed
by Alasinga Perumal, were eagerly awaiting his
arrival. To them, he revealed his intention of
visiting America to attend the Parliament of
Religions that was being convened at Chicago.
His young disciples forthwith raised a sub-
scription for his passage. But the Swami was
not yet certain that it was the Divine Mother ’s
will that he should go, and so he asked them to
give away the money to the poor. At this
juncture, the Swami had a symbolic dream in
which Sri Ramakrishna walked out into the sea
and beckoned him to follow. This, coupled with
the blessings and permission of Sri Sarada Devi,

47. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 47
who also, in a dream, had received Sri Rama-
krishna’s consent, settled the question for him,
and his young friends again set about collecting
the necessary funds.
He next paid a short visit to Hyderabad.
Then, while arrangements were being made for
his journey to America, there came a sudden
invitation from the Maharaja of Khetri to attend
celebrations in connection with the birth of his
son. The Swami could not refuse this invitation
from his disciple. The Maharaja received him
cordially and promised to help him in every
possible way. And it was here, at his suggestion,
that the Swami assumed the name
‘Vivekananda’. True to his word, the Maharaja
sent his personal secretary with the Swami to
equip him for the journey and see him off at
Mumbai. His journey to America commenced
on 31 May 1893.
On the World Stage
Swami Vivekananda travelled to America via
China, Japan, and Canada, and reached Chicago
about the middle of July. At Canton, he saw
some Buddhist monasteries; in Japan, he noted

48. 48 INSPIRING LIVES
with admiration the industrial progress and
cleanliness of the people. Now, at Chicago, so
dazzling with riches and the inventive genius
of the West, he was puzzled like a child. To his
disappointment, he learnt that the Parliament
of Religions would not be held until September,
and that no one could be a delegate without
credentials. He felt lost, but resigning himself
to the will of Providence, he went to Boston
which was less expensive than Chicago.
Previously while travelling to Chicago, he had
met Katherine Sanborn of Boston on the train.
She had invited him to be her guest. Through
her, he came to know Professor John Henry
Wright of Harvard University, who gave him a
letter of introduction to the Chairman of the
Parliament of Religions. In the course of this
letter, Dr. Wright said: ‘Here is a man who is
more learned than all our learned professors
put together.’
The Swami returned to Chicago a couple of
days before the opening of the Parliament of
Religions, but found to his dismay that he had
lost the address of the committee which was
providing hospitality for the oriental
delegates. After a night’s rest in an empty
wagon at the Chicago train station, the Swami

49. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 49
set out in the morning to find somebody who
could help him out of this difficulty. But help
for a coloured man was not readily available.
Exhausted by a fruitless search, he sat down on
the roadside resigning himself to the divine will.
Suddenly, a lady of regal appearance emerged
from the fashionable house opposite,
approached him, and offered him help. This was
Mrs. George W. Hale, whose house was to
become in future the permanent address of the
Swami while in the United States, for the Hale
family became his devoted followers.
The Parliament of Religions opened on 11
September 1893. The spacious hall of the Art
Institute was packed with above 4000 people,
representing the best culture of the country. On
the platform, every organized religion from all
corners of the world had its representatives. The
Swami had never addressed such a huge and
distinguished gathering. He felt extremely
nervous. When his turn came, he mentally
bowed down to Sarasvati, the goddess of
learning, and then began his address with the
words, ‘Sisters and Brothers of America’.
Immediately, there was thunderous applause
from the vast audience, and it lasted for full
two minutes. ‘Seven thousand people rose to

50. 50 INSPIRING LIVES
their feet as a tribute to something, they knew
not what.’ The appeal of his simple words of
burning sincerity, his great personality, his
bright countenance, and his orange robes was
so great that next day the newspapers described
him as the greatest figure in the Parliament of
Religions. The simple monk with a begging
bowl had become the man of the hour.
All the subsequent speeches of the Swami at
the Parliament were listened to with great
respect and appreciation. They all had one
common theme—universality. While all the
delegates to the Parliament spoke of their own
religion the Swami spoke of a religion that was
vast as the sky and deep as the ocean. When
the Parliament ended, the days of quiet had
ended for the Swami. What followed were days
of hectic lecturing in almost every part of the
United States. Having signed a contract for a
lecture tour with a bureau, the Swami had to
be constantly on the move, speaking to all sorts
of audiences. Though this tour provided him
with opportunities of knowing the different
aspects of western life at first hand, he found
that the bureau exploited and embarrassed him.
He felt disgusted and severed his connection
with it. Now he wanted to form a group of

51. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 51
earnest American disciples, and began classes,
free of charge, for sincere students. His stay in
the West, which lasted till December 1896, was
packed with intense activity: besides
innumerable lectures and classes at New York,
he founded a Vedanta Society there; he trained
a band of close disciples at the Thousand Island
Park; and he wrote Raja-yoga and paid two
successful visits to England, where he gave the
lectures which now form Jnana-yoga. There he
made some disciples, prominent among them
being Capt. and Mrs. Sevier, Sister Nivedita, and
E. T. Sturdy. Earlier, in New York, J. J. Goodwin,
a young English stenographer had been
accepted as his disciple. It was during these
visits that he had the pleasure of meeting the
great savant Max Muller. During his tour of
Europe in the summer of 1895, he also met the
famous German orientalist Paul Deussen.
He had laboured hard to give to the West his
message of Vedanta as the universal principle
basic to all religions, and his effort had by now
resulted in the establishment of the Vedanta
work on a permanent basis in the United States.
The London work, too, had made some
progress. Now his motherland was calling him
and was eager to receive his message. So, from

52. 52 INSPIRING LIVES
London, he started for India at the end of 1896.
Besides his American and English disciples, he
left behind his brother disciples Saradananda
and Abhedananda to carry on the work.
Triumphal Return
Swami Vivekananda left London with the
Seviers on 16 December 1896, and after a visit
to Rome and other places in Italy, he took the
boat for India at Naples on 30 December. At
Naples, Mr. Goodwin joined the party. They
reached Colombo on 15 January 1897. The news
of the Swami’s return had already reached
India, and the people everywhere, throughout
the country, were afire with enthusiasm to
receive him. He was no more the unknown
sannyasin. In every city, small or big, committees
had been formed to give him a fitting reception.
As Romain Rolland says, the Swami ‘replied to
the frenzied expectancy of the people by his
Message to India, a conch sounding the
resurrection of the land of Rama, of Shiva, of
Krishna, and calling the heroic Spirit, the
immortal Atman, to march to war. He was a
general, explaining his Plan of Campaign, and

53. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 53
calling his people to rise en masse: “My India,
arise! Where is your vital force? In your
Immortal Soul.”’ At Chennai, he delivered five
public lectures, every one of which was a
clarion call to throw away weakness and
superstition and rise to build a new India. He
emphasized that in India ‘the keynote of the
whole music of the national life’ was religion,
a religion which preached the ‘spiritual oneness
of the whole universe’, and when that was
strengthened, everything else would take care
of itself. He did not spare his criticism, however,
castigating his countrymen for aping the West,
for their blind adherence to old superstitions,
for their caste prejudices, and so on.
From Chennai the Swami sailed for Kolkata
and arrived there on 20 February. His native
city gave him a grand welcome, and here the
Swami paid a touching tribute to his Master:
‘If there has been anything achieved by me, by
thoughts, or words, or deeds, if from my lips
has ever fallen one word that has helped
anyone in the world, I lay no claim to it, it was
his. ... If this nation wants to rise, take my word
for it, it will have to rally round his name.’
To establish his work on a firm basis, the
Swami summoned all the monastic and lay

54. 54 INSPIRING LIVES
disciples to a meeting at Balaram Bose’s house,
and the Ramakrishna Mission was formed on 1
May 1897. The aims and ideals of the Mission
propounded by the Swami were purely spirit-
ual and humanitarian. He had inaugurated the
machinery for carrying out his ideas.
When plague broke out in Kolkata in May
1898, he organized relief work with the help of
the members of the monastery and lay
disciples. After the plague was under control,
the Swami and his western disciples left for
Naini Tal and Almora. This was a period of great
preparation and training for his western
disciples, especially Sister Nivedita. On 16 June,
the Swami left for Kashmir with some of these
disciples. This trip to Kashmir was an
unforgettable experience both for the Swami
and for the disciples. At the end of July, the
Swami journeyed with Sister Nivedita to the
holy shrine of Amarnath. Observing meticu-
lously every little practice demanded by
custom, the Swami reached the cave of
Amarnath on 2 August, wearing only loin-cloth,
his body besmeared with ashes. His whole
frame was trembling with emotion; a great
mystical experience came over him, of which
he never spoke, beyond saying that Shiva

55. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 55
Himself appeared before him. This was
followed by a lonely visit to Kshir Bhavani, the
shrine of the Mother Goddess, a few kilometers
away from Srinagar. This proved to be another
memorable experience for the Swami. He was
full of the Mother and said, quoting from his
own poem: ‘It all came true, every word of it;
and I have proved it, for I have hugged the form
of Death.’
When he reached Kolkata on 18 October, he
was pale and weak and suffering from various
ailments. Despite this, he engaged himself in
numerous activities. A piece of land had been
acquired at Belur on the west bank of the
Ganga, 8 km above Kolkata, and the cons-
truction of the monastery had started. In
January 1899, the monks moved to the new
monastery, the now famous Belur Math. The
Nivedita Girls’ School had been inaugurated
earlier. The Bengali monthly Udbodhan was also
started at this time. And the Seviers fulfilled
the Swami’s dream of having a monastery in
the Himalayas, by starting the Advaita Ash-
rama at Mayavati (Champawat, Uttaranchal)
in March 1899. The English monthly Prabuddha
Bharata had been started at Chennai earlier, but
on the untimely passing away of its editor in

56. 56 INSPIRING LIVES
1898, it ceased publication for a month. The
monthly started again at Almora under the
editorship of Swami Swarupananda, a disciple
of Swami Vivekananda, and in 1899, it was
transferred to the Advaita Ashrama at Maya-
vati.
During this period, the Swami constantly
inspired the sannyasins and brahmacharins at the
Math towards a life of intense spirituality and
service, for one’s own emancipation and the
good of one’s fellow men— Atmano moksh-
artham jagat hitaya ca, as he put it.
But the Swami’s health was failing. And his
plan to revisit the West was welcomed by his
brother monks, in the hope that this would
improve his health.
Across the World Again
Swami Vivekananda left India on 20 June
1899, taking with him Swami Turiyananda and
Sister Nivedita. The journey with the Swami
was a great education to both of them. Sister
Nivedita wrote: ‘From the beginning to the
end, a vivid flow of stories went on. One never
knew what moment would bring the flash of

57. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 57
intuition and the ringing utterance of some
fresh truth.’ After touching Chennai, Colombo,
Aden, and Marseilles en route, the ship arrived
at London on 31 July. The trip was beneficial to
the Swami’s health.
After spending two weeks in London, he
sailed for New York. Arriving there, he went
with Mr. and Mrs. Leggett to their beautiful
country home called Ridgely Manor on the
River Hudson. The Swami stayed at this
country retreat until 5 November and then
went to the west coast. He visited Los
Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and also
made short trips to Chicago and Detroit. Now
the conviction that the East and the West
ought to be mutually helpful and must co-
operate with each other grew stronger upon
him. The mere material brilliance of the West
could not dazzle him, nor could the emphasis
on spirituality in India hide her social and
economic drawbacks.
He said to Nivedita: ‘Social life in the West
is like a peal of laughter; but underneath, it is a
wail. It ends in a sob. ... Here in India, it is sad
and gloomy on the surface, but underneath are
carelessness and merriment.’ The West had
tried to conquer external nature, and the East

58. 58 INSPIRING LIVES
had tried to conquer internal nature. Now East
and West must work hand in hand for the good
of each other, without destroying the special
characteristics of each. The West has much to
learn from the East, and the East has much to
learn from the West; in fact, the future has to
be shaped by a proper fusion of the two ideals.
Then there will be neither East nor West, but
one humanity.
The main event of this period was the
starting of the Shanti Ashrama in Northern
California, which he placed under the charge
of Swami Turiyananda. A Vedanta centre at
San Francisco was also inaugurated. He also
delivered a number of lectures in the western
cities during this period. But the Swami was
becoming more and more aware of the ap-
proaching end. He wrote to Miss MacLeod:
‘My boat is nearing the calm harbour from
which it is never more to be driven out.’
On 1 August 1900, he arrived in Paris to
participate in the Congress of the History of
Religions, held there on the occasion of the
Universal Exposition. With some friends, he
left Paris in October and visited Hungary,
Rumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria, before arriving
at Constantinople. Then they proceeded to

59. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 59
Athens and Cairo. In Cairo, the Swami suddenly
became restless to return to India; he had a
premonition of Capt. Sevier ’s death. He took
the first available boat and hurried back to India
and reached the Belur Math on 9 December
1900, without any previous intimation. It was
a pleasant surprise to his brother monks and
disciples, who greatly rejoiced at his return.
The Journey’s End
At the Math, Swami Vivekananda heard that
Capt. Sevier had passed away on 28 October,
and he left immediately for Mayavati to
console Mrs. Sevier. Arriving there on 3 January
1901, he stayed for a fortnight. The grandeur of
the scenery of this Himalayan Ashrama,
dedicated to Advaita, delighted him. In spite
of his ill health and the severe cold, he wandered
in the woods and around an artificial lake,
happy and carefree.
Returning to Belur, he stayed there for seven
weeks and then left for East Bengal and Assam.
His mother, who had expressed an earnest desire
to visit the holy places there, went with him. ‘This
is the one great wish of a Hindu widow’, he wrote
to Mrs. Bull. ‘I have brought only misery to my

60. 60 INSPIRING LIVES
people. I am trying to fulfil this one wish of hers.’
He returned to the Math in the second week of
May 1901, after visiting Nangalbandh,
Kamakhya, and Shillong during the tour, and
delivering a few lectures at Dhaka and Shillong.
Now the Swami tried to lead a carefree life
at the monastery. He would roam about the
Math grounds, sometimes clad only in his loin-
cloth; or he would supervise the cooking; or sit
with the monks singing devotional songs.
Sometimes, he would be seen imparting spirit-
ual instructions to the visitors, at other times
engaged in serious study in his room or ex-
plaining to the members of the Math the
intricate passages of the scriptures and unfold-
ing to them his schemes for future work. He
freed himself entirely from all formal duties by
executing a Deed of Trust in favour of his
brother disciples, transferring to them all the
properties, including the Belur Math, so far held
in his name.
Towards the end of 1901, two learned
Buddhists came from Japan to invite him to
attend the forthcoming Congress of Religions
there. The Swami could not accept their
invitation, but went with them to Bodh Gaya
and from there to Varanasi. At Varanasi, he was

61. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 61
delighted to see a few young men who, under
the inspiration of his message, had started
nursing the poor and the needy. Their work
formed the nucleus of the future Ramakrishna
Mission Home of Service.
The Swami knew his end was nearing. All
his actions during the last days were deliberate
and significant. He said that smaller plants
cannot grow under the shade of a big tree. On
4 July 1902, he meditated from 8 to 11 in the
morning, rather unusually. In the afternoon, he
went out for a walk with Swami Premananda
and explained his plan to start a Vedic school.
In the evening, he retired to his room and spent
an hour in meditation. Then he lay down quietly
and after some time took two deep breaths and
passed into eternal rest.
He had renounced his mortal body, but his
words uttered in 1896 to Mr. Eric Hammond in
London remained to reassure everyone of his
immortality: ‘It may be that I shall find it good
to get outside my body to cast it off like a worn-
out garment. But I shall not cease to work. I
shall inspire men everywhere, until the world
shall know that it is one with God.’

62. 62 INSPIRING LIVES
What Others have Said about Him
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
I cannot write about Vivekananda without
going into raptures. Few indeed could compre-
hend or fathom him — even among those who
had the privilege of becoming intimate with
him. If he had been alive, I would have been at
his feet.
Rabindranath Tagore
If you want to know India, study Viveka-
nanda. In him everything is positive and
nothing negative.
Mahatma Gandhi
Surely, Swami Vivekananda’s writings need
no introduction from anybody. They make their
own irresistible appeal.
Romain Rolland
He (Vivekananda) was energy personified,
and action was his message to men.... His pre-
eminent characteristic was kingliness. He was
a born king and nobody ever came near him
either in India or America without paying
homage to his majesty.

63. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 63
TEACHINGS
My ideal, indeed, can be put into a few words,
and that is: to preach unto mankind their
divinity, and how to make it manifest in every
movement of life.
•••
Education is the manifestation of perfection
already in man.
•••
We want that education by which character
is formed, strength of mind is increased, the
intellect is expanded, and by which one can
stand on one’s own feet.
•••
So long as the millions die in hunger and
ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who,
having been educated at their expense, pays
not the least heed to them!
•••
Whatever you think, that you will be. If you
think yourselves weak, weak you will be; if
you think yourselves strong, strong you will
be.
•••
Strength is life; weakness is death.
•••

64. 64 INSPIRING LIVES
Arise! Awake! and stop not till the goal is
reached.
•••
The older I grow, the more everything seems
to me to lie in manliness. This is my new Gospel.
•••
Purity, patience, and perseverance are the
three essentials to success, and above all, love.
•••
I only preach what is good for universal
humanity.
•••
Religion is realization; not talk, not doctrine,
nor theories, however beautiful they may be.
It is being and becoming, not hearing or
acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming
changed into what it believes.